A former New York City police officer who sexually assaulted his neighbor in Belmar more than a dozen years ago does not have to register for lifetime community supervision under Megan's Law, the state Supreme Court ruled today.Spencer Platt/Getty Images

BELMAR — A divided state Supreme Court ruled today a former New York City police officer who assaulted a neighbor in Belmar does not have to register for lifetime community supervision under Megan’s Law because a lower court judge never informed him of that requirement at his sentencing.

The former officer, Joseph Schubert Jr., 42, should have been placed under lifetime supervision when he was sentenced in June 2000, but the trial judge in Monmouth County neither informed him of the requirement nor imposed it at sentencing.

The state Parole Board discovered the error on the part of Superior Court Judge Ira Kreizman in 2007, who is now retired, four years after Schubert had completed his three-year probation term.

Schubert pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman renting a house on his street in Belmar, where he was vacationing in 1996. The authorities said he attacked the woman, 19, after he knocked on her door and she opened it.

In an effort to correct the illegal sentence, the judge in 2008 imposed the lifetime supervision provision. Schubert appealed, claiming the judge’s action violated his constitutional protection against double jeopardy, and an appellate panel agreed.

The state Supreme Court, in adopting the appellate division’s conclusion by a vote of 4-to-2, said double jeopardy would not have applied if lifetime supervision was considered remedial for Schubert. But in a 27-page opinion written by Judge Dorothea Wefing, the majority on the court found the provision would indeed be punitive, and said Schubert deserved the constitutional protection.

Justices Helen Hoens and Anne Patterson disagreed, arguing that the lifetime supervision provision was not punitive. If that were the case, they said, the involuntary commitment of sex offenders to longer prison terms or indefinte sentences — which have been upheld by the courts as lawful — would also be considered punitive.

The 18-page dissenting opinion written by Hoens further contended that the court had long established that an illegal sentence could be corrected at any time, even if it increased the defendant’s term.

Schubert’s attorney, Philip DeVencentes of Hackensack, said his client was under supervision from 2008 until the appellate decision in mid-2011, and during that period he could do very little without permission from his parole officers.

"That’s punishment," DeVencentes said. "And if it’s punishment, it can’t be imposed after you’ve already been punished. That’s the reason for the double jeopardy clause — to prevent this sort of thing from occurring."